


Seeds in Dark Earth

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-06
Updated: 2008-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For about two years, Frodo has a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds in Dark Earth

Rosie sings softly while she clears the table. Frodo feels the cold in his bones and huddles closer to the fireplace, watching her. Her belly is round and high under her dress. She stops singing and balances three plates and three glasses on her arm to press one hand on her back. It must ache, Frodo realises, and almost looks around to see if Sam's not around to help her - before realising how selfish that thought was.

He can feel the ache in his own joints when he stands and goes to her, but forgets it when she turns around, startled, and a smile begins to grow on the corners of her mouth. He takes the plates off her hands and smiles back, and it's genuine although he's not so good at smiling anymore, not on nights like this.

"No, Mr. Frodo, it's all right..."

"It would please me greatly if you would allow me to do this for you, sweet lady," he says with a bow and a flourish, and she laughs. She knows it's not proper, but her back does ache, and Mr. Frodo can be persistant. Before she can decide, he has disappeared into the kitchen. Sighing, she makes her way to the chair by the fire and sinks down gratefully.

The little one is quiet inside her now, although there was quite a bit of kicking going on earlier that day. She supposes the baby is exhausted after all the exercise of the day. She'll have a handful with this one; but at the same time she can feel, as a tingle in her body, that this one will be magical and wondrous as well; or maybe all babies are.

She knows somehow that the baby can hear her if she sings to it, or feel the thrum of her voice, like Rosie can feel the soothing rumble when Sam tells her stories as she lays her head against his chest in their bed. She's been singing all her favourite songs to the little one; ones about love lost and found, and of the earth, and the return of the sun, and the growing after the fading's over. She wonders which ones the baby will remember, or if she is being a ninnyhammer for thinking like this.

Then Sam comes home from the mill, flushed and happy with a song of his own on his lips and a fresh sack of flour under his arm. He kisses her hello and tells her there was birdsong around the new trees today, and a squirrel running up the new Party Tree already.

And in the kitchen Frodo stares at his hands, immersed in the cooling soapy water, and thinks of the hands of an Elven warrior under smoky bog water, and how dead they look, so white and bony and frail. And he feels the cold in his chest, still nearing his heart, and wonders if there is a chip of the Morgul blade still winding its way into his heart that Lord Elrond maybe missed. I won't live long, he thinks, and believes this is probably as it should be. He can feel the dark around him like a wraith's cloak, like taint. The Elven stone hanging around his neck feels a pale substitute for a great dark lover, now long dead and lost.

"Goodness! Mr. Frodo, why are you standing in the dark?" The candle has sizzled out and Frodo hadn't even realised it. He lifts his head, suddenly distracted back into the present, and realizes his eyes are brimming with tears. Sam puts a sack into one of the lower cabinets before kindling a new candle.

"...I was washing dishes," Frodo manages, and forces a smile.

"Now here Mr. Frodo, that's not your job and you know it too," Sam says and gently takes his hands from the water, drying them with a towel since Frodo makes no move to do it himself.

Frodo watches Sam's face, concentrating on his task - and lets him do it - strong fingers carefully brushing the towel around Frodo's thin fingers. Sam's not looking up at him, likely because Frodo isn't fooling him one bit but Sam's not going to say anything about it, about the tears and the dark, because really it's all been said before and it feels good just to have Sam's familiar touch on his hands. It's better than words and it's what Frodo wants, more than speech.

Sam is solid and real and the only good part of Frodo's darkest memories. They walked through the valley of death and now here Sam is, blooming again - growing trees and flowers and a child along the way - Frodo knows somehow that there will be more before long, many more. Frodo is death. Sam is life.

Then Rosie's at the door with another candle. "Washing the dishes? Oh, you know better than that, Mr. Frodo! We don't want to be losing any more plates and glasses!" She purses her lips, but it doesn't last long. Rosie isn't very good at not smiling.

Frodo almost laughs, as impossible as it seemed just a moment ago. "I'm sorry, sweet Rose! See, no harm done tonight." He indicates the half-finished pile of dishes, all intact. He's not been so successful before, with the tremble in his fingers and the strain on his arm.

Sam takes both their arms and steers them towards the door. "If you beg my pardon, my dears, I believe the baby would like to be nice and warm, near the fire, and maybe hear a story about the elves. Reckon you have one, Mr. Frodo?"

"There is no resisting you, is there, Sam?" Frodo smiles broadly, and it isn't difficult at all to do so. His chest feels warm again, fortified against the cold of the wound on his shoulder. And he sits down by the fire with Rose and she puts his hand on her belly and he knows that life is more powerful than death.


End file.
